Time magazine – No Depression?

The financial crisis has produced no shortage of news media references to the Great Depression. Reuters News has a slideshow this week, for example, called “Ghosts of 1929.” All the talk of Dustbowl Okies and Folkies has spurred its share of stories comparing that era to 2008, including this Reuters story by yours truly.

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson contributes the latest entry in the latest edition of Time magazine, which the magazine teases on its cover with the headline, “No, this isn’t Depression 2.0. How history can help us avoid it.” The story is a must-read for anyone who remotely cares about history and money.

But… is Time having its breadline and eating it too? We ask because the headline on the cover that teases Ferguson’s article tells us it’s not the Depression — just beneath a full-cover image of the urban poor in a breadline circa 1930-something. The big headline on the page reads: “The New Hard Times.” Maybe — but not yet.

On a separate note, and speaking of soup, Campbell Soup Co said in September that it would expand its soup plant in Maxton, North Carolina, allowing it to make a line for making ready-to-serve soups and carton-packaged broths. We’re not sayin’… we’re just sayin’.

In my opinion we are very much due a severe economic downturn. We always re-flate the economy by lowering interest rates and pumping money into the system which always leads to aggressive and risky investments because of the low interest rates and the need for more return on investment. This can keep going until our foreign investors decide not to fund our consumption and service based economy.

The only way out of this financial nightmare is through a major change from the current U.S. administration.

And the only presidential candidate who can make that happen is someone who has enough national-government experience to know how the economy works, and enough experience with the world to understand international relations.

That someone is John McCain, who (despite those efforts to call him “McSame”) is no pal of the Bush Administration – look at how many times McCain has voted AGAINST measures that his fellow Republicans have supported. There’s no love loss between McCain and the GOP.

The alternative, the very green Barack Obama, would be a financial and foreign-relations disaster for the U.S. and for the world. He’s a smooth talker, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Barack is simply a risky choice. Let’s hope the Americans think hard before stamping the ticket for him.

Jim….. You’re joking, right?!?
McCain means change?
McCain supported Bush more than 90% of the time.
I don’t know many marriages with that level of agreement.
And we should judge the two candidates based on experience? How about the experience factor in the most significant decision either man has made since their nomination – that of a choice for vice president. Are you really comfortable with Sarah Palin standing a heartbeat away from succeeding the oldest first time presidential nominee ever ….. with a history of health problems?
But then you WERE joking, right?

Maybe I’m confused, but I don’t think the Chinese will be buying our bad debt, considering 1/5 of China’s currency reserves was in Fannie and Freddie’s bonds. The Time article linked to in this post says “China and America have come so close to merging financially that we can almost speak of ‘Chimerica.’” That’s scary. I guess printing more money is the best we can do for now.

[…] released. Does the following mean No Depression is halfway there?” The following refers to a recent Time cover story, which features an iconic photograph of a 1930’s bread line, and the tag line, “No, […]